A Thousand Years
by Neph Moreau
Summary: On a planet two hundred thousand light years from Earth, in a tiny cafe, Rose and the Doctor have a quiet moment courtesy of Jack. Written for atimelordswife on tumblr in response to her post of John Barrowman singing 'A Thousand Years'. Not a song fic.


A/N: How does this always happen to me!? This was written for atimelordswife on tumblr in response to her tags on John Barrowman singing A Thousand Years. It seems everything I write in this fandom is destined to be inspired by someone's tags - however, she did ask for this. I hope it lives up to your wishes.

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Sometimes she found it hard to believe that everything she'd done (in two separate timelines - one with the Doctor and one without him) had actually happened. It was days like this, where they were having one of those days that were actually 'the bits in-between' (which was not, despite what he'd told her mother, the trouble part of their lives, but rather their downtime), when she was sitting on sand every jewel-tone that existed in her galaxy or any other, made of what amounted to crushed gemstones, and watching a trinary star system set over an ocean that was tinted purple from the dominant rocks on the planet they were on forming the ocean floor, reflecting the pink and orange hues in the sky, that she could hardly believe that she'd come to this place from the basement of a store on a tiny little planet that most life forms in the galaxy wouldn't hear of for millennia, with just one little word: run.

It didn't matter that she'd heard the word in two different timelines, from two very different men. Well, to be fair, Jack hadn't actually told her to run - not at first. He'd run to her, swooped her up in a grand hug, swinging her legs off the ground and squeezing her to his chest while shouting "Rosie" without a clue that she didn't know him from Adam - or Martha or Sarah Jane. That had been during the years where the Doctor hadn't existed. She wasn't sure to this day (and she wasn't sure that the Doctor even knew) if that had been some sort of parallel world or if the Prime Universe had simply compensated around his non-existence. Most things had still happened. They never did find out what had become of the Master in that timeline. The Daleks had been completely eradicated early in their development, and Time Lords had been wiped out by some other means, or were perhaps merely mysterious, silent watchers, but no one had seen or heard from them in a long, long time. Torchwood had never existed - and so Jack had worked for UNIT.

And eventually, after much prodding and poking on his part, so had she. Being a fixed point in time had an odd effect on Jack, so that even when the rest of the Universe completely forgot the Doctor, Jack still knew. Even stranger, Jack had his memories from the moment that the Doctor had stepped back through time to seal the cracks in the Universe to the moment that they had appeared. As far as Rose could tell, if the Doctor had stayed just a bit longer, waited just a little while longer in his own personal timestream, events might have been different. He could have gone through the cracks when she was nineteen, just after saying goodbye to her, before he regenerated, or just after Bowie Base One, which would have been far, far worse. If he'd done the latter, as far as she could tell, she would have still be in the parallel universe, Doctor or no Doctor.

Choosing the time he did unwrote everything from that point forward. It was dangerous. But, it had worked. The cracks had closed. And somehow, someway, when the Doctor came back, everything and everyone went back to where they were supposed to be - her mother, the Doctor - everyone but her. She stayed on this side of the walls.

She expected him, then. Counted on it, really. June 2010. The day they remembered the Doctor.

But he didn't show up.

Oh, they eventually found each other again - and that was an adventure, for sure. One long in their past.

And now here they were, sitting on this glorious beach of this beautiful resort planet, the adorable Ponds roaming somewhere around the market, Jack God-knows-where, just sitting on the beach in silence. There's been a lot of that lately, and she can tell he's worried about something, but he's not been talking, and she's been letting it slide, knowing that when he's ready, he'll tell her. He always does.

And when the suns have finally set, and the sky is alight with the twinkle of thousands upon thousands of stars, so many of which they still have to see, and his eyes seem to be fixed on one in particular, he smiles down at her sadly, for just a moment, and reaches down and grabs her hand, and she remembers the first time he changed, when she was so afraid he wouldn't be the same man anymore. But she knows now that he will always be her Doctor - and she will always, always be the one who makes him better. She knows he's made some choices that she doesn't approve of - he needs her there to hold his hand, to make him stop. She's glad to do it.

And so she smiles back at him, and allows him to lead her to a small cafe just off the waterfront, where they are seated at an intimate little table in the back, a single candle in a jar the only light. Somewhere in the room, a piano is playing, and she smiles - this is exactly the kind of place her first Doctor would have hated, and her second Doctor would have taken her to while pretending to not understand the significance of.

Still the same man, but different. But different can be good, too.

The pianist takes a short pause, and starts a dedication - she's barely paying attention, but the Doctor seems transfixed on the person behind her, so she turns to face the musician, and raises an eyebrow in an uncanny imitation of her second Doctor when she sees Jack sitting behind the piano, blue eyes shining in merriment.

"A lifetime ago, when I was a different man (and come to think of it, so was he), I met the lovely couple in that back corner. They've been through hell and back, both together and apart, and if there's one thing I know (besides to keep my hands off the blonde), it's that it's better with two, especially those two. This is for you, Rosie, and your Doctor. I wish you both the forever you want to give one another."

Jack's sincere (and slightly irreverent) words make her tear up, but when he begins to play, she realises she can hardly breathe past the lump in her throat. The song is beautiful, and so unbelievably perfect - she wishes she could simultaneously look at both the Doctor and Jack, to let them both know how much this means to her. She knows her mascara is probably leaving tracks on her cheeks, and she doesn't care, because this is one time when she knows that whatever forever she has, he will take it, with no regrets - and Jack's unselfish gift, the blessing of the only brother she has in this universe, is something she can't bear to look away from. She had no idea he could sing so well, and by the second chorus she finds herself humming along.

The Doctor comes to stand behind her, placing his hands upon her shoulders, and she looks up at him in silence for a moment before whispering, "Forever, my Doctor."

"Quite right, too."

Once those words would have hurt, more than anything, but she understands now how hard it is for him to say anything more, when he knows that her forever is so much shorter than his, when she could be ripped away from him by a whim of fate and he would be left without a hand to hold. She reaches up and grasps one of his hands in both of her own, squeezing it reassuringly, to make sure he knows she understands, as the song winds down.

Jack takes an exuberant bow, throws them both a saucy wink, and saunters off into the crowd, looking for willing companionship - not that he has to look hard.

Rose releases his hand, and turns to face him as he sits back in his chair. The moment has passed. Conversation starts, encompassing everything from where the Ponds could have possibly wandered off to to when they will next see River Song and what time Jack will show up at the TARDIS the next morning.

After all, there are some things that don't need saying. Not between the Doctor and Rose Tyler.


End file.
